Joss Whedon Talks Avengers 2 and Loki’s Absence

Joss Whedon has spoken out about the decision not to feature Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

It’s been confirmed that Hiddleston will not reprise his role as Loki in the upcoming Avengers sequel. Don’t mourn the lack of Loki just yet as Hiddleston will return as Loki in the upcoming Thor: The Dark World.

Whedon spoke to Entertainment Weekly about why Loki will not be in the Avengers sequel, “Every movie is going to be a different villain. Loki’s awesome, and he is awesome in Thor 2. But The Avengers is a different thing.”

Whedon also spoke about working with Hiddleston on the first Avengers film:

“I worked with Tom more than any other actor [on The Avengers], because he was the only villain and there were six heroes. And he was as great as anyone I’ve ever worked with, and I get why people loved the character. But it’s an Avengers movie.”

When asked about his previous promise that the new avengers film will feature “death, death, death”, Whedon answered diplomatically

“I’d have to have a really good reason, a really great sequence for [Marvel executives] to go, ‘We’ll cut off a potential franchise, that’s fine!’ They know, as any good studio does, that without some stakes, some real danger, how involved can we get?

“We don’t just rule it out across the board, but neither is the mission statement ‘who can we kill?’ We try to build the story organically and go, ‘How hard can we make it on these people?'”

The Avengers: Age of Ultron has a scheduled release date of May 1, 2015.